“Are you sure, Jenny?” Because the man had worked with a partner years before. Maybe he was up to his old tricks. Two hunters.
A game? A competition?
“I only heard him. No one else.”
Noelle smiled at her. “Thank you, Jenny. You’ve been very helpful.” She rose from the couch and turned for the door.
Jenny grabbed her hand. “When am I going to stop seeing him?”
Noelle stilled. Then, slowly, her gaze slid to find Jenny’s.
“Every time I close my eyes, he’s there.” Jenny swallowed and the little click of sound was almost painful to hear. “When will that stop? When will he get out of my mind?”
“When I catch him and lock him in a cell. Then you won’t ever have to worry about seeing him again.”
Jenny nodded and she let go of Noelle.
“Thank you for your time.” Noelle inclined her head to Jenny and Jenny’s mother. Then she left because looking at Jenny was far too much like looking at herself.
The sheriff followed her out. Noelle had been given a new coat from the sheriff’s department, one that fit better, and it helped to block the chill in the air.
The door shut behind them. “I need to head back to the station,” Noelle said. Thomas and Aaron were out running down leads and searching the area. They thought if the perp was looking for medical aid, he might be staying close to the town—and they were determined to find him.
When the sheriff didn’t speak, Noelle glanced his way. He was watching her with a hooded gaze. “Sheriff?”
“Locking him up won’t stop that girl’s nightmares.” His hand rasped over his stubble-covered jaw. “You and I both know that, don’t we?”
Her head tilted as she studied him.
“Camden was a quiet town before all this mess started.” His lips pressed together and formed a grim line. “But Los Angeles, well, it had more than its share of crime.”
So there was more to the sheriff than met the eye. Wasn’t that the story with everyone? “You came up here to get away.”
“I got tired of arriving too late.”
She knew exactly what that was like.
“You’re not FBI.”
Noelle didn’t so much as blink. “My ID says otherwise.”
He laughed, but the sound was grim. “This ain’t my first rodeo, and I know FBI agents when I see them. They’re stiff, by the book, and they sure as hell don’t race through fire without so much as twitching.” He pointed at her. “It was the other agent who gave things away. Military. Covert, I’m betting.”
“The past few days have been very stressful,” she said carefully. “I think—”
“That bigwig who flew in on his own chopper, he isn’t FBI. I don’t know what organization you all work for, but I do need to know this.” He exhaled on a rough breath. “Is my town safe? Or will more people be hurt soon?”
Watch what you say. “We are going to catch the man who’s behind Jenny’s abduction.”
“Yeah, but are you and that team of yours going to do it before or after I have to clean up more bodies?”
* * *
THE SNOW WAS RED.
Thomas stopped instantly when he caught sight of the red drops. He lifted his hand, an old habit, as he signaled to Aaron.
Aaron bent low and gazed at the blood and at the faint trail that led across the street. The trail ended right at the door of an old pharmacy.
The lights were out in that pharmacy. Odd, since power had come back to the city an hour ago.
“Cover me,” Thomas said flatly. He advanced toward the building, aware of Aaron following him. Thomas had his gun out, and he was more than ready to use it on the man who’d nearly killed Noelle the night before.
There were more droplets at the door, as if the guy had paused for a moment before he’d gone inside. Thomas reached for the knob. It twisted easily in his grasp. He shoved open that door and rushed inside.
Aaron was right on his heels.
Drops of crimson dotted the aisle. He followed them, then saw the heavy, blood-soaked cloths on the counter.
A quick search showed no one was in the pharmacy. The back door was unlocked. Just like the front.
“Looks like the guy got away again.” Aaron shook his head. “But we had to be close.”
Thomas studied the discarded bandages—and the bullet that had been left behind.
“He dug it out, huh?” Aaron whistled. “I had to do that once. Thought I’d pass out before the bullet came out of my stomach.”
Thomas’s gaze swept the scene once more. “He didn’t dig it out himself.” That just made things so much worse.
“What? How do you know?”
Thomas grabbed the purse that had fallen on the ground near the red-stained counter.
“Hell,” Aaron muttered.
Thomas pulled out the ID inside. Sarah Finway. A Sarah Finway who was most definitely not there any longer.
“He’s got another victim,” Thomas said.
* * *
NOELLE STARED AT the photos on the wall. All of those girls. Scared. Blindfolded. So alone.
But you weren’t really alone, were you? Because their abductor had been the one to take the photos.
“I’ve got more men coming in,” Mercer said.
She nearly jumped at his voice. She’d been so intent on those girls Noelle hadn’t even heard him enter the little office.
“They’ll be here in two hours.”
Right. When Mercer said jump, people flew.
“They’ll search every inch of the senator’s house, and if there’s more evidence to find,” he nodded and said, “we’ll have it.”
Her phone rang. Noelle glanced down, saw it was Thomas, and she answered immediately. “Did you find him?”
“He’s got another victim.”
Her fingers tightened around the instrument.
“A woman who worked at the pharmacy, Sarah Finway. The guy’s blood is here, but he’s not and neither is she.”
Her heart thundered in her chest. “We can use his blood for DNA. If he’s in the system, we’ll have an ID.”
“But we won’t have her.” Frustration boiled in Thomas’s voice. “The guy knows this area. He’ll stash her, and then he’ll kill her, all while we’re running down DNA.”
Thomas wasn’t used to this part of the business. EOD agents were men and women of action. They didn’t run DNA checks. They didn’t stalk after criminals. They went in. They attacked. They completed their missions.